Olympics, tennis, rugby, cricket, and now cycling – is there anything we cannot do better than everyone? We were beaten at golf and women's football, but we'll let that pass. However the one thing Britain does best of all is to claim monumental "externality" to sporting prowess. When the economy was in the doldrums, we "couldn't even win a World Cup". When we do win World Cups, it means a "tremendous boost of confidence into the economy". It is as if Britain were a Stakhanovite Soviet, in which every effort is to the glory and benefit of the state. Last week the government put out a survey purporting to show that the 2012 Olympics had "made a profit" of £10bn for the nation on the £9bn cost. The figure was such rubbish that even the BBC found it hard to keep a straight face. Like David Cameron's £13bn in "overseas sales" supposedly dependent on "Olympics diplomacy", it was fantasy economics.

Big sporting festivals nowadays cost vast sums of money, and that money is never recouped. Other proclaimed advantages to sport owe more to marketing hype than reality. Britain saw no sports participation surge during or after the Olympics. Everyone watched television. Tourism slumped. The same went for the "health dividend", the legacy dividend and the trade dividend. The chief gain from the Olympics, as from other sporting events, is the boost from extra government money in circulation. At least £9bn was spent on something.

The sensible approach to any sporting success is to greet it for what it is: a young person or group of people doing something really well. This does not require politicians to go drooling and panting for credit. It has no political or economic significance, however much politicians crave it to be otherwise. Like a great work of art or a great performance, a sporting triumph, such as Chris Froome's, is a human enterprise well done. It is sad that we cannot celebrate it as such.